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Published: January 13th 2011
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Riverside, Hot Springs Towns
Gualeguaychu is a sweet, riverside town, far off the gringo trail. It's little-visit by Argentinians outside of its big Carnival and summer weekends when they throng the city. I came for the hot springs, the affordable hostel and swimming in the Gualeguaychu River, a branch of the Uruguay River that forms the border between Argentina and Uruguay. Used to swimming in the ocean, I was amazed to be able to drink the water I was swimming in. However, this may soon change--more on that in a moment.
I'd come from Salto, Uruguay, with its vast and beautiful hot springs nearby in Daymen. All along the Uruguay River, especially here on the Argentina side, there are small towns with hot springs. I'd planned on spending a few days also in Colon, Argentina, billed in the Lonely Planet as the most attractive of these towns. Indeed it was with a yacht harbor, beach side restaurants and high-end shops--it reminded me of my beloved Santa Barbara. However, prices matched.
I'd lugged my heavy suitcase down concrete steps to the ferry that would take me from Salto across to big city Concordia, Argentina. There, I heaved the suitcase up
former warehouses
now public spaces and recycling center a huge flight of stone steps from the river to the street. Major error as I eschewed the $5 taxi ride into the city, and on a very hot afternoon, wheeled my too-heavy suitcase several kilometers uphill to the town. My hips would hurt for weeks after.
Unfortunately, it was a holiday in Argentina, so my early morning ferry didn't run, and there were fewer buses leaving Concordia. Instead of arriving in Colon at 1 pm, it was 8:00 pm. No hostel, so I began calling the cheapest hotels and was freaked that none had singles--I'd have to pay double the price. Finally, one said 60 pesos, and I was off, jerking my suitcase down rough gravel/stone streets over which it couldn't roll. At the hotel, I learned that he'd said 160 pesos--OMG, that's $40--not in my price range. Major meltdown.
Fortunately, the two very wonderful guys (gay, I'm pretty sure since they were attractive, well-dressed and sensitive), lowered the price to 100 pesos/$25--higher than anything I've ever paid, but doable (especially since there was no other choice). We had great conversations, and the next day, they sent me to the public thermals. These, fortunately, had great massaging
jets in a pool that was under a shade cover (no sunburn here), and I stayed a long while. I retrieved my suitcase, jerked up the gravel streets again and was off to Gualeguaychu, where there was a hostel--yeah!
The hostel in Gualeguaychu was quite near the riverside, and I spent lovely days swimming in the pristine river. However, these days of enjoying clean water are numbered.
The Ugly Side of Globalization
Across the river in tiny, untouristed Fray Bentos, Uruguay, that government has allowed several European companies to build paper mills on the Uruguay River. The largest of these is Botnia from forest- and river-rich Finland. Paper mills have a history of seriously polluting the rivers on which they are built, which is certainly why these countries choose to locate their mills here and not on their own rivers. While Botnia is supposed to be state-of-the-art clean, by their own admission, they are releasing lots of toxins into the water and atmosphere daily.
This is the face of modern globalization and the privatization of the exploitation of natural resources. Rich countries construct mills, mines, factories to exploit the resources and cheap labor of poorer countries, polluting
the latter in the process. They then export the finished products as well as selling the finished goods back to the developing country at high prices.
We all know about the shrinking of the Amazon basin due to logging, mining and agriculture, but it's happening everywhere here in South America. Here in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, vast plantations of soy (for China's livestock), eucalyptus and pine poison the land with pesticides and herbicides (thank you Monsanto) and choke out biodiversity to enrich foreign coffers.
However, here in Gualeguaychu, just downstream from the mill, people are fighting back. They mounted an opposition campaign, "No to Paper Mills," and you see these signs everywhere in store windows and on cars and murals. Just as the 1968 oil spill in Santa Barbara thrust the city into an awareness of the fragility of the environment and developed in us an environmental conscience, the same has happened here. It's one of the few Argentine cities to offer recycling and also composting of organic waste. The city awakened.
This awakening of the middle classes has occurred before, the most famous being the
Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, the Mothers of the May
follow the leader
many horses and carts around town Plaza in Buenos Aires, who demonstrated against the Dirty War. Here in Gualeguaychu, there's a monument affirming solidarity with the Madres, the first I've seen in a small town. I suspect it was erected after this town had its political awakening.
In 1988, higher charges for public services resulted in the
cascerolas in which protesting women took to the streets, banging together casserole pans and their lids. In 2003, a large demonstration occurred in Patagonia in the town of Esquel, where a Canadian gold mining operation was destroying the pristine forests and lakes. More protests have taken place all over, but we never hear of them.
Here in Gualeguaychu, the population slowly awakened to the warnings of the environmentalists and since 2003, there have been articles published and meetings held and protest marches over the Argentine/Uruguay international bridge; the last march had 100,000 people--more than live in this small town. In 2005, the demonstrators closed the bridge and the border between the two previously-amicable countries. It remained closed until just a couple of months ago.
The case is being heard in the international Court of Justice in the Hague, but people here, as everywhere, are afraid that
a Gaucho Gil shrine on the roadside
I'd first met this Robin Hood character in Mercedes rich countries and multinational corporations will win over the will of the people and the environment. I wonder how many of the court's decisions are in favor of developed countries and multinational corporations, and how many support developing nations' claims? Certainly, Gualeguaychu's seventh generation will not be swimming in this now-pristine river.
Of course, I've heard other opinions. A Uruguayan said that the Argentinians are really just upset that they didn't get the contracts. An Argentine journalist pointed out that they need paper and foreign investment. How sad that this is occurring with Uruguay, a country that I've really enjoyed and to which I'm now heading. Yet in all countries, there is the good and the bad. I know, I'm from one of the best/worst, the US.
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